I'm basically assuming that "space-based data centers" are some Glomar Explorer-style cover for something else.
It isn't... the hostile local government can seize the ssh keys you use to control it and take it over just fine.
The hostile international non-local super power just gained a new ability to jam communications or destroy it with a bit of deniability too.
Local governments in the US practically never exercise control over data centers by doing any of the things you just discussed. There's a reason why you're saying "this has been threatened". It's a strange new thing resulting from bizarre current behavior - behavior and a resulting trend that started after Elon started talking about space based data centers, and thus cannot be the cause of it.
I'm not caught up entirely, but I would imagine that NSA's capabilities have advanced beyond what has been published from slides created nearly 20 years ago.
you mean other than China, russia, NK and Iran?
What is the offensive launch that can destroy 60 000 satellites in one mission? I don't think it exists.
Its will ruin it for everyone, but Russia or China is certainly able to do that.
Retrograde launch, with 20 tons of small objects (say 1mm radar absorbing ceramic ball bearings to cause maximum chaos and minimize even the theoretical ability to avoid the oncoming disruption). Dispersed into a wide variety of LEO orbits by ejecting them as the rocket changes orbit. You wouldn't deny the orbital sphere for very long, because small objects would drop out quickly, but everything in it would be destroyed.
There's 10k starlink satellites alone that could all be destroyed by this. Which is the right number of orders of magnitudes.
Admittedly you can't get far above that currently though, since there are only about 15k satellites in orbit... but a single directed energy weapon could destroy practically every satellite in every orbit instead of only the low earth orbit ones so as a log-of-portion-remaining weapon it gets those extra orders of magnitude.
Space is not a safe place - if you want to keep things safe you keep them on firm ground protected by the atmosphere. If you want to keep them really safe you put them below the ground.
Even in Russian nationalist circles, the occassional idea of shooting down current Starlink satellites is usually met with derision from the rest of the discussion group (see, for example, topwar.ru comments). That is just step too far, too dangerous.
Meanwhile, on Earth, you have a lot of plausible deniability. "Some terrorist group sneaked in and planted a bomb, totally not our people."
or a tweet calling it "very weak response" and lying about being warned in advance.
This "space datacenters is more important than colonizing the universe" thing is just to deflect from what would be an inevitable failure because if they do this pivot, they can push out the timeline for that further than the original 2026 on Mars goal that they are about to wildly overshoot.
I would argue that complexities of building Starship are already a solved problem. Boca Chica built a lot more test units than there were (test or production) Apollos and the "factory for rockets, churning them out in regular intervals" part seems to be mastered. They even made three iterations of Raptor, and the third one looks really promising so far.
What is far from perfected is the heat shield and I agree that it is a critical problem.
"it, they can push out the timeline for that further than the original 2026 on Mars goal that they are about to wildly overshoot"
True, but this seems to be ubiquitous in space industry. I am old enough to remember talking about the US going back to the Moon in the 1990s. But the goal, declared by presidents (who have a lot more power at their hands to fulfill it) kept being pushed back and back, always into the next decade, then the next...
If you tolerated it from the government, you should probably tolerate the same from Musk, for the sake of consistency.
Being the first rocket in history where both parts reached the ground ready to land is a pretty good start.
And if Starship can't land then any space datacenters are just as or even more unlikely, so that explaition makes no sense what so ever.
I think if fusion is real, it might not be so advantageous until space mining is a thing.
In other words good old fashioned plausibly deniable securities fraud.